Southampton Quaker Meeting House

We know that the first Quaker meeting house in Southampton was a private home because it was mentioned in court proceedings in 1660. Between 1657 and 1666 some 60 Friends were prosecuted (a third of them women) for holding their own meetings for worship not in a church.

After the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689, Quakers built a registered Meeting House in Castle Lane (where the Old Law Courts now stand) in 1705. This was followed by a new Meeting House in Castle Square in 1822 (opposite what is now the Juniper Berry pub). As the town grew, a new Meeting House was built in 1884 conveniently close to the Quaker Burial Ground (established in the Avenue in 1662). The address ‘Ordnance Road’ with its military connotations was considered ‘unfriendly’ but Friends hoped that they might ‘plant heavenly ordnance in the locality’. The architect was instructed to design ‘something between a chapel, a mission room and a club building’.

Visitors to the Meeting House will see the striking simplicity (perhaps plainness) of the meeting rooms, with no special spaces or special seats and no pulpit. Until the 1970s there was downstairs a raised platform for elders facing the meeting, but the whole Society in Britain moved after the 1940s to demonstrate as clearly as possible the traditional Quaker concerns of equality and justice and peace; of truth and integrity; of simplicity and sustainability. Our aim is for our buildings to be part of those ‘testimonies’.

Timings & Tours

Saturday 14 September:

1000-1600

Location & directions

1A Ordnance Road, Southampton, Hampshire, SO15 2AZ

Contact on day:

Alex Stanek

Telephone number:

+447598265795

Booking information

Pre-booking requirement:

Pre-booking not required

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